In 2018, the district judge in our south-central Montana region was retiring, and my husband, Ray, encouraged me to run for the seat. Ray, an attorney with 30 years of experience in civil and criminal practice, was new to the political world. He knew he would be an underdog. All judicial elections in the state are nonpartisan, but we were not dominantly Republican. And, having only lived in Montana for 20 years, I knew I would still be considered a newbie.
I told Ray, “They just need to get to know you, and then they'll like you.”
The district covers three rural counties and is too big to reach all of its voters in a campaign, so we couldn't wow them with Ray's barbecue brisket.
Over six months, we visited more than 8,000 voters across the political spectrum. We didn't know what to expect, but we didn't expect people to be so eager to share their deeply personal stories. It wasn't just eager, it seemed compelled.
A conversation on someone's doorstep creates instant rapport. It's the line between public and private, after all, but who would have thought that political activism could lead to such unvarnished honesty? Perhaps because our communities are divided, we have a near-universal need to be witnessed, acknowledged, and trusted.
Listening alone will not alleviate suffering; it must first be accompanied by improved access to public services. Listening will not magically heal political divisions, either. But I believe that a system that makes some people feel like they don't matter is doomed to fail. I don't know what it will take to heal divisions, but I think it has something to do with sharing stories.
Instead of talking about ourselves, we focused on the people we met. We focused on the little things around the house, usually the gardens and the dogs. There were always dogs, big and small, many old and well-loved.
A few people asked questions, mostly along the lines of, “Republican or Democrat?” When Ray pointed out that this was a nonpartisan election, a few people brushed off the question, but most seemed happy and relieved to be able to stop talking about politics, and, perhaps fueled by our initial curiosity, the conversation began to flow.
A former mechanic told me that after he lost his sight, he spent his days listening to audiobooks in a recliner in his garage, with his mint-condition '58 Packard Hawk parked next to him as a friend. A Vietnam War veteran told me he thought he'd lost his moral compass until he learned about PTSD. He now runs a support group for other veterans.
One man pressed a button in his throat to laugh about losing his voice to cancer, which was nothing compared to the loss of his child, drowned by his mentally ill wife. Another told me he'd just taken his daughter to hospice that morning, after she'd unexpectedly survived Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine's Day.
“They stole my father's voice,” my Crow grandmother told me after her father was taken from his family and “reeducated” in residential school. She reached out and touched my wrist. “The men who suffered this still can't talk about it, but we women can. We have to tell our stories.”
I heard many stories of abandonment and abuse, of methamphetamine and alcoholism, but even more of adoptions (some formal, most not) of grandchildren and nephews and nieces, of neighborhood children, of makeshift tapestries of families.
Our encounters weren't always good. Sometimes we would get doors slammed in our faces and we would think, “What's the point?” We avoided houses with signs warning of aggressive dogs or, more commonly, aggressive gun owners.
Almost always, we heard a voice from somewhere say, “Come in.” We were offered water, Gatorade, wine, pie, banana bread, and landscaping rocks. Most of all, we were grateful to be listened to. In those brief but intense conversations, something important was forged. We had the overwhelming sense that the people we spoke to felt, at least in that moment, that they mattered to someone. And we felt that we mattered.
Ray's ability to listen was what made him a compassionate judge. Ultimately, voters chose Ray's opponent, but by a narrow margin rather than the landslide victory expected.
I never felt a sense of loss. We stood together on porches and broken staircases, among pots of petunias and tins of wet cigarette butts, and listened. People told stories full of pride and pain. Can you see me? They seemed to ask in a hundred different ways. Can you see my beauty? Can you see my pain?
There were very few things they asked of us, and it was easy to say “yes.”
